


Ferns and Mistletoe

by icyvanity



Category: Stitchers (TV)
Genre: (and we all know what that leads to), Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5531360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyvanity/pseuds/icyvanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team has to go undercover at a socialite gala. Cameron and Kirsten are using the cover of being in a relationship, in case they run into his parents, for whom the gala is being held.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ferns and Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> Present for [xoheatherkw](http://xoheatherkw.tumblr.com) for the Stitchers Secret Santa 2015.

“What would you say if I told you we’d both been invited to a gala being held in honor of the Goodkin family?” Camille asked one day, leaning in the doorway of Kirsten’s room.

Kirsten, who’d been rooting around in her drawer for a missing sock for the past 7 minutes, cocked an eyebrow, “The _Goodkins_? As in Cameron Goodkin?”

Camille wrinkled her nose, “Why did you have to say his last name? It’s not like you two aren’t drooling over each other in the lab every single day.”

“We don’t drool.”

“Heart eyes?”

“ _Camille_.”

Camille held up her hands, even though Kirsten was half in her chest of drawers and didn’t notice, “Fine, fine. Yes, those Goodkins. Looks like they donated a lot to the UCLA Medical Center, yada yada, and they now have an event held in their honor.”

“And they invited us?”

Camille nodded, “Linus too. I’m only guessing Cameron got an invite.”

Kirsten extracted her arms from the drawer with a sigh, “Well that’s convenient. At least we won’t have to con our way inside.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Camille said, pouting, “that was _one_ time. And you didn’t seem to have a problem with it in the moment. Plus, it’s Christmas; it’s probably sacrilegious to sin during such a holy time.”

“You’re not even—” Kirsten began, but stopped herself. She chose instead to respond to Camille’s other point, “It did seem like a pretty good plan to go undercover as wait staff and follow a wealthy socialite around all night on the suspicion she were involved in a mysterious murder, just to be almost caught by said socialite’s rather angry bodyguards.”

“Well she _was_ guilty, wasn’t she?”

“Fair point.”

Camille grinned, “I’ll RSVP ‘yes’, then?”

“Yes please.”

“Call Cameron, would you?” Camille said, pivoting and making her way around the piles Kirsten had expelled from her drawers. She paused in the doorway, “Oh, and I think the sock is over on your bed.”

Kirsten sighed, heaving herself to her feet; indeed, the sock was sitting in the middle of her bed, mocking her from across the room. She scowled at it and bent down to pick her phone up from the floor.

She dialed _Dr. Smartypants_ , putting him on speaker as she sat down on her bed and put the damned sock on.

“Hey, Stretch,” he answered cheerfully.

“Your parents are being honored at a gala that we all happen to be invited to,” she said simply. “How do you feel about a stakeout?”

* * *

 “Cameron, what in the world are you _wearing_?”

“You said stakeout! This is my stakeout gear!”

“I think I also said _undercover_. Do you really think your parents aren’t going to notice something’s going on if you’re wearing _that_?”

Kirsten was standing, rather exasperatedly, in Cameron’s doorway, regarding his all-black ensemble with distain.

“Well you don’t have to say it like _that_ ,” Cameron said crossly. He nodded at her arm, “What’s in the bag?”

Ignoring the question referring to the opaque garment bag she held over one arm, Kirsten shouldered past him into the apartment.

As she walked towards his room, she called over her shoulder, “We’ll be mingling with the Los Angeles elite, not crawling under bushes with infrared binoculars. So go put something on worthy of being arm-candy.”

Cameron squawked, but missed the chance to reply as Kirsten swept into his bathroom and slammed the door.

Grumbling to himself, Cameron walked into his closet and glared at the array of garment bags as if they personally offended him, “I’ll show you some damn arm candy.”

* * *

Cameron was holding up two bow ties, attempting to gauge which went better with his black suit and silver dress shirt; simple black or a vibrant blue.

“I would go with the blue,” he heard Kirsten say, the door creaking open as she made her way into the room. He made eye contact with her in the mirror, at a loss for words.

Her dress was white with navy detailing all around it, focused mainly on the bodice. She had curled her hair, holding it up with shiny silver pins. Her makeup was simple, a cat eye and a matte lip, but it suited her just as well as the outfit did.

“You look…” Cameron finally said, but still couldn’t find the words to describe her outfit.

Kirsten shrugged, ignoring his speechlessness as she always did, “Camille picked it out.”

“Good job Camille.”

Kirsten nodded absentmindedly, taking the tie out of his hand and going to work putting it on him. “So,” she began, and Cameron was instantly worried; Kirsten never began anything like that. “Since we’re going undercover, and there’s a _large_ possibility of us running into your parents, we’ve got to have a cover.”

“A…cover?” Cameron asked slowly.

“Haven’t you ever seen a spy movie?”

“ _Bond_ , yes. Not much else.”

“Well, the easiest cover would be that we’re dating,” she said, fastening  the tie with an air of formality.

Cameron choked.

Kirsten looked rather alarmed. “Oh no, did I tie it too tight?” she asked, fingers already untying it at a quick pace. “I haven’t done it in a while.”

“No,” Cameron wheezed, batting her hands away, “it was more the dating proposal.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Kirsten was making eye contact with him in the mirror, and Cameron knew he would regret breaking it. “We don’t have to. It’s just the easiest.”

“Easiest? Thanks, Stretch; way to make me feel like a last resort.”

She sighed, exasperated, “You aren’t a last resort. I meant it would be easy because we’re friends and everyone we know is already betting on us getting together, so it’s not entirely unreasonable.”

This calmed Cameron’s heart down to beating at an only _slightly_ faster than usual rate. “Okay, cool,” he said casually.

He could do this.

* * *

 Cameron Goodkin could _not_ do this and, as a matter of fact, Kirsten Clark was going to be the death of him.

While he still hadn’t spotted his parents, they had come across a smug Camille and Linus who congratulated them on their impending Facebook relationship status change.

Kirsten rolled her eyes and Cameron died a slow, painful death inside.

They were currently meandering behind a large fern that hid them from view, while also offering a fantastic vantage point from which they could spy to their heart’s content; out on the dance floor, where Linus was spinning a sanguinely clothed Camille; over by the buffet, where their suspect was surveying the multifarious caviar display; coming straight at them—

“Cameron, is that you?”

Cameron cursed his parents for their timing, and felt Kirsten’s hand wrap his arm around her waist.

“Hey, Ma,” Cameron said, smiling nervously.

She wrapped her arms around him in a hug that was made awkward by his arm frozen around Kirsten’s waist.

“And who’s this?” his mother asked, regarding Kirsten thoughtfully.

Kirsten held out a hand (the one _not_ currently wrapped around a glass of red wine), forcing a smile, “Kirsten Clark. I’m Cameron’s girlfriend.”

Cameron was _definitely_ dying now. His mother gaped, sending a glare in his direction, but he barely heard her chastising him; Kirsten had just called herself his girlfriend and Cameron could only focus on one important event at a time.

When he was able to escape his euphoria, Kirsten was saying, “—work together.”

“An office romance,” his dad chimed in, smiling down at his wife, “I remember what that was like.”

Cameron’s mother rolled her eyes at him, but leaned against him as she explained, “We were doing our residencies at the same hospital; I was in cardiology and he was in rheumatology.”

“How lovely,” Kirsten said.

Cameron’s father began ushering his wife away, “I think I see some colleagues of ours, if you’ll excuse us.”

“Of course. It was lovely to meet you.”

Cameron was watching Kirsten as she was watching the suspect, noticing her lips quirk up as she said, “Now, that went well, didn’t it?”

Camille and Linus made their way across the dancefloor towards them. Camille paused, muttering, “Suspect’s on the move,” and then continued on her way past them. Kirsten and Cameron joined them, following the man up the grand staircase.

* * *

 Camille seemed slightly disappointed that the suspect, a banker by the name of Ferdinand Williams, admitted his crime as quickly as he did. Perhaps it was because of Kirsten and Camille standing on either side of him, like avenging angels. Or perhaps it was the taser that Camille held in one hand, baring her teeth as Kirsten questioned him. Either way, Fisher led him quietly out the back door in handcuffs, thanking them for their assistance.

“Good job, team!” Linus said, high fiving Kirsten and Cameron before he climbed into the Über; Camille threw a bundle of mistletoe at them, cackling as the car drove away.

Left alone, they were quiet.

Cameron mustered up his courage and broke the silence.

“Did you really fake-date me just because it was the easiest cover?” he asked, but his words came out more jumbled than he imagined in his head.

Kirsten glanced at him sideways, giving nothing away, “What do you think?”

Cameron loosed a shaky breath, “I don’t know what to think. I only know what I feel.”

“And what’s that?”

“I love you,” Cameron said simply, eyes fixated on Kirsten’s face; she smiled.

“You know I can’t give you that for certain,” she said softly, but her fingers brushed his.

“I know.”

Kirsten leaned towards him, brushing her lips against his cheekbone.  She then leaned her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes and whispering, “But, I’m willing to try.”

It began to snow, but there were far stranger things happening than snowfall in southern California. A girl opened the heart she kept hidden to the boy who wore his on his sleeve. She kissed him again; a warm and steady press of lips that made them both crave more. But there would be time for that later, so they just gazed out at the flurries covering the city of Los Angeles, together.

**Author's Note:**

> [read on tumblr](http://lady-gryffindor.tumblr.com/post/135922038503/ferns-and-mistletoe)


End file.
